A Monstrous Regiment of Women

overcoat with blue fingers. I dug into my pocket and thrust a bill of some denomination or other into the innkeeper’s hand. His protests cut off sharply.

“A fire, if you please. And hot drink, and food.”

“Yes, miss. Right away, miss.”

“Miss Russell, I have orders to take you to Town, immediately I find you.”

“Speed will not be improved by your turning to ice,” I pointed out, “and I have no boots on. Are you alone?”

“My brother’s outside,” he muttered, and finally succeeded in opening his coat. He groped into an upper pocket and came out with an envelope. I took it but did not open it.

“How did you find me?”

“They told me at your house you’d set off on a walking tour, planned on putting in for the night along the way. There were twenty-eight other places I asked before this one.” The memory of twenty-nine sets of furious landlords was not, it seemed, a pretty one, and I was struck by the vision of two Cockneys hunting through the wilds of Oxfordshire in a London taxi, pounding on door after enraged door.

“Why didn’t—oh, never mind. Here’s something hot. I’ll call your brother in. No, you dry out a bit.” The envelope in my hand, I put my head out into the rain and gave a low whistle, and the driver of the cab was soon huddled beside his brother in front of the fire, drinking a horrid mixture of tea and brandy while their coats steamed. Only then did I put my thumb into the envelope and tear open the flap. I read, in Holmes’ cramped and hurried hand:

Veronica Beaconsfield had a nearly fatal accident on the Underground today (Thursday) at four o’clock. Her doctor says she will recover. She’s in Guys, room 356. I’ve dug Watson out to stick to her.

So much for my walking tour. So much for the resumption of my real life. I went up for my kit and followed Billy and his brother out to the incongruous, mud-spattered black taxi.

My friend Ronnie lay in her private room, bandage and plaster and a few inches of skin. The grizzled figure beside her bed looked up as the door opened, and I knew that under the coat lying across his knees there was an old Army revolver pointing at me. His face lightened immediately and he got to his feet, leaving the coat on the chair. I stepped back into the corridor so as not to disturb Veronica.

“Mary! I was beginning to wonder if the lad had fallen into the Irish Sea.”

“The lad,” Billy, being old enough to be my father.

“Hello, Uncle John. It was good of you to turn out at this hour.” I kissed his smooth cheek. He’d taken time to shave, which indicated that Holmes had stayed with Veronica himself for some time before asking Watson to report for guard duty. “Where is he?”

“Holmes? Don’t know. Around somewhere. He’ll probably look in towards morning. Any time now. How have you been, Mary? Did you have a good Christmas? And I missed your birthday, but I have a little something for you, brought it back from Philadelphia. Lovely town, that.”

“Oh, yes? Er, thanks, and Christmas was fine.” I couldn’t remember Christmas just at that moment. “How is Veronica? Do you know what happened?”

“Seems to have fallen in front of a train coming into an Underground station. Elephant and Castle, was it? Or Borough? No, the Elephant and Castle station. Concussion, broken arm, lots of scrapes and bruises. Nothing bad, lucky girl. Shockingly easy to happen. Still, Holmes seemed to think it mightn’t have been an accident, so I’m playing nursemaid for a few hours. Her people were here, and a young man with Holmes, but no one else, just the nurses. Until you, of course.”

“Look, Uncle John, he was right. We can’t take chances. Even… even the hospital staff. Keep a close eye, and if anything doesn’t seem right—an unnecessary procedure, an injection—don’t let them do it until you check.”

“You and Holmes.” He shook his head. “The two of you think I’m new to the game. I’m not about to let a stranger inject her with a lethal dose just because he’s wearing a white coat. Me, of all people! Your Miss Beaconsfield is safe. Now run along and get yourself cleaned up before they catch sight of those boots and throw you out of here.”

I decided that Holmes was right to trust Watson and that there was nothing I could do for Veronica here. I turned to go, but Watson made that noise beloved of Army colonels— which can best be transcribed as “harrumph”—so I paused.

“By the way, er, Mary, has Holmes brought up… That is, did he say anything to you about, aharrumph, well… fairies?”

“Fairies?” Holmes had many arcane interests, but nursery tales were a new one to me.

“Yes, you know, fairies, dancing, with wings and… you know, wings and things.” He waved his hand vaguely and looked uncomfortable.

“I haven’t seen a great deal of him lately, but when I did, he never mentioned them. Why should he?”

“You haven’t seen it, then. It truly was not my fault,” he burst out, “and if I had been consulted, I certainly should have objected. I have already complained strongly to the editors, but they say I have no recourse, since he’s only my agent.”

I seized on the last word.

“Are you talking about Doyle? What has he done?”

He groaned miserably. “I cannot bear to talk about it. Holmes was insufferably rude to me, said I’d ruined his career by getting mixed up with the man, said no one will ever take him seriously again.”

“I’m certain he meant no such thing, Uncle John. You, of all people, ought to know how he is. He’ll have forgotten it in a week.” Whatever ‘it’ was.

“It’s been two weeks; he was barely civil when he asked me to come here. Truly,” he pleaded, “there was not a thing I could have done.”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” I said soothingly, but if anything, his agitation increased.

“No! No, you mustn’t. He’s not rational on the subject, believe me, Mary. Say nothing about fairies, or Doyle, or The Strand. Or about me.”

“Fine, Uncle John, I’ll take care. And don’t worry, it will come out right in the end.”

Puzzled, I took my leave, and walked out of the hospital without, I think, any obvious haste. Even Watson, who knew me well, could not have guessed that the very sight of a hospital set my flesh to creeping. Even long days of VAD work during the war hadn’t cured me. Such was my haste that the street sweeper outside the hospital had practically to trip me with his broom to catch my attention, despite the fact that I had known he would be there, in some guise or other.

He did not look at me, but dumped the frayed and much-mended broom into its slot on his trolley and ran a disgusting glove under his nose. I nearly missed his muttered “London Bridge Station, first bench on the right” before he began to cough, great rheumy coughs. I left before the act grew any more graphic.

The morning paper I bought outside the station had a small notice about Veronica’s accident on a back page. I sat reading my way towards the front, noting the reports from the hunting field (the Prince of Wales had been out with the Warwickshire, and they’d taken three foxes. Brought from a zoo and loosed that morning, I thought sourly). A “Jurywomen’s First Murder Trial” would see those good pioneers in the judicial world locked up for the night, alongside the male jurors, in an hotel in Aylesbury. Someone was using a live relic of the Boer War as a doorstop. The drawing of a light frock with an unlikely hat was entitled “Tailor-made for the Riviera.” I had passed on to the ever-cryptic and often sinister messages of the agony column before a heavy and unpleasantly odorous body dropped beside me. I shook the paper in indignation and slid away, burying my face more deeply into its pages.

“You’re back sooner than you thought, Holmes. Why aren’t you in Marseilles?”

“Even I cannot productively interview dead men, Russell. Someone reached the three witnesses before I did.”

I tried to look at him around my newspaper, which was fluttering uncontrollably in the breeze. I shook it upright in irritation.

“Is this subterfuge necessary, Holmes? I feel a fool. Next thing, we’ll be establishing passwords.”